The invention generally relates to providing announcement information in requests to establish interactive call sessions.
Packet-based data networks are widely used to link various types of network elements, such as personal computers, servers, gateways, network telephones, and so forth. Data networks may include private networks (such as local area networks or wide area networks) and public networks (such as the Internet). Popular forms of communications between network elements across packet-based data networks include electronic mail, file transfer, web browsing, and other exchanges of digital data.
With the increased capacity and reliability of packet-based data networks, voice communications (including telephone calls, video conferencing, and so forth) over data networks have become possible. Voice communications over data networks are unlike voice communications in a conventional public-switched telephone network (PSTN), which provides users with dedicated, end-to-end circuit connections for the duration of each call. Communications over data networks, such as IP (Internet Protocol) networks, are performed using packets or datagrams that are sent in bursts from a source to one or more destination nodes. Voice data sent over a data network typically shares network bandwidth with conventional non-voice data (e.g., data associated with electronic mail, file transfer, web access, and other traffic).
Various standards have been proposed for voice and multimedia communications over data networks. One such standard is the H.323 Recommendation from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which describes terminals, equipment, and services for multimedia communications over data networks.
Another standard for voice and multimedia communications is the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which establishes, maintains, and terminates multimedia sessions over a data network. SIP is part of a multimedia data and control architecture developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IETF multimedia data and control architecture also includes other protocols to enable voice and multimedia sessions over data networks, including the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) for reserving network resources; the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) for transporting real-time data and providing quality of service (QoS) feedback; the Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) for controlling delivery of streaming media; the Session Announcement Protocol (SAP) for advertising multimedia sessions by multicast; and the Session Description Protocol (SDP) for describing multimedia sessions.
In telephony communications (both over data networks as well as over conventional circuit-switched networks such as the PSTN), some indication is typically provided with a call to identify the calling party. In a PSTN system, such an indication can be a caller identifier (ID), typically in the form of a telephone number, that appears on the telephone display. In some telephony systems, such as in private branch exchange (PBX) systems, key exchange systems, and centrex systems, the name of the calling party can also be displayed in addition to or instead of the telephone number. Similar information (originating telephone number and name or address of calling party) can also be displayed at the destination terminal in a call session over packet-based data networks.
Such identification information associated with the calling party can be used by a called party to screen calls. Thus, for example, if a called party is busy and an incoming call is received, the called party can elect not to answer calls from persons outside a select group. However, although the calling party can be identified using such identification information, further information is typically not provided. This limits information available to a called party on how to dispose of an incoming call.
In general, according to one embodiment, a method of establishing a call session in a data network includes receiving, at a device, a call request to establish an interactive call session. The call request includes announcement information including identification information of the calling entity and additional information describing the requested call session. The announcement information is presented on the device to influence a called party on disposition of the call request.
Some embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following advantages. By providing additional information to describe the desired call session, a description of contents of the call session in addition to identification of the calling party may be provided to the called party. This provides the called party with additional information on which a decision can be made regarding whether or not to take the call. Thus, a calling party can convey a desired message to the called party with the call request, rather then waiting for the call to be forwarded to a voice message system and waiting for the called party to retrieve the message at a later time. One benefit offered to the called party is that the called party can make a decision to pick up an urgent call if necessary. A benefit offered the calling party is that a mechanism is provided to notify the called party of the urgency of a call. In addition, the announcement information can itself be used as the primary mechanism for communication.
Other features and advantages will become apparent from the following description, from the drawings, and from the claims.